


Preface.

by VictoryCandescence



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-02
Updated: 2012-04-02
Packaged: 2017-11-02 22:54:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoryCandescence/pseuds/VictoryCandescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson has written a book about the adventures of the late Sherlock Holmes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Preface.

_ To SH, without whom my life would have been hatefully boring. _

☺

 

 

Preface.

 

  
In my life, I’ve already been a lot of things. I’ve gone from being a roustabout bookworm of a   
kid to a rugby-playing girl-crazy Uni student to a Captain in the RAMC and back again. But   
never has any role I’ve ever held been so important to me or impacted my life as greatly the    
one I had when I worked with Sherlock Holmes. I know all too well that many reading this   
will only know that name through the scandal recorded in the media. So I am here to tell   
you that what you’ve heard is absolutely not the entire story. The story told to the public   
only showed the strange and tragic finish. And while I wasn’t there at the start or even at his   
undertaking of the job he invented for himself as world’s only Consulting Detective, I was   
right alongside him as he came into his own, as he rode the trajectory of a fame he certainly   
earned but never wanted. And I was the only one there at the end.   
  
A great many have suggested that if he was a talented enough liar to make so many believe the   
lies he invented, that it would only hold I would be the one most fooled, the grandest dupe   
in his scheme. The thing is, nothing anyone has said or will say can ever make me doubt the    
veracity of his genius. I had the singular pleasure of witnessing his process firsthand, and   
even though his personality was abrasive at best and downright infuriating at worst, the   
pure logic and reason with which he thought through a problem was astounding. He was a    
light in the darkness of confusion and impossibility, able to observe and catalogue each and   
every pertinent detail about a person or a case, and leave no doubt as to his unique   
abilities. I am grateful I got the chance to see him work while he was still with me, and I    
still think that however tarnished it may seem now, his legacy will win out and live on.   
  
Early in my association with Sherlock, I was quite the worse for wear. I was alone, using a   
cane because I couldn’t shake my psychosomatic limp, and was near zero on my bank balance.   
One chance encounter with a friend brought me to meet Sherlock, and from that day on,   
my life was never the same. I owe him for changing me for the better, and I like to think –   
even though if he were here he wouldn’t admit it – that I changed him for the better as well.    
Help is what we both needed and what we both gave to each other without even seeing or   
observing just how much it meant. These adventurous tales of murder and mystery   
may seem to just be clever fun, and that’s fine, but for us it was our lives. It was real, all of it,   
every moment: every criminal and cypher and corpse and chase.   
  
I have not written this book to be contrary or argumentative. If there is one thing I have   
learned from being Sherlock’s friend, it’s that most people only see what they want. If you are   
obstinately set in seeing him as the fraud he was painted as, I cannot change your mind. As   
valiant as I may have described him here, and though he would be the first to tell you he was   
exceptional in his genius, he would also be the first to tell you he was no hero. This is true.    
Yet the fact that he helped a countless number of people through his work is undeniable.   
Of all the people I’ve ever known, he was the best and most human, and I simply hope you   
understand him a bit more as I have through the stories I’ve recorded in this book.   
  


Dr. John H. Watson

London, March 201–

**Author's Note:**

> You read, but did you observe? 
> 
> Of course you did. : )


End file.
